Blessed Elder Ieronymos (Apostolides) of Aegina was born Vasilios Apostolides in 1883 in the village of Galyveri, Cappadocia, in Asia Minor. His pious parents, Anastasios and Elizabeth, had six children. As a boy he was deeply impressed by the fervent prayers of both his mother and the secret ascetics who lived in the cave-churches of Turkish-occupied Cappadocia. As a young man he was ordained a deacon by Metropolitan Sophronios of Amisos in Asia Minor. Later, he visited the Holy Land and stayed for nine months in the Monastery of St. John the Forerunner near the River Jordan. On his return, he served as a deacon in the Church of St. George in Constantinople, where he was long remembered for his holiness, his zeal, and his wonderful voice. The Exchange of Populations in 1922 brought Fr. Ieronymos, as well as millions of his fellow Greeks, back to Greece as refugees, ending the 2000-year-old Greek Christian civilization in Asia Minor.

After suffering for two months from a painful disease, he died in an Athens hospital on Sunday October 3, 1966, at 12:33pm.[note 1] His funeral service was presided over by Metropolitan Akakios of Attica and Diavleia, and his relics repose in his Skete of the Annunciation (Evangelismos) above the town of Aegina. On September 5 (September 18 n.s.), 2014, Blessed Ieronymos was glorified a saint by the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece.

Notes

↑"The time was exactly 12:33 in the afternoon, Sunday October 3, (October 16 n.s.), the feast of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, 1966." (Botsis, p.248)